The Very Good Bean Butchers

Bean Butchers? Yep, they're a thing. Butchering poor harmless little beans, all so that we can eat something that looks like meat, tastes like meat but... ain't meat. Even though it's butchered. What a cool idea... and apparently a wildly popular and growing trend.

For a while now, I've been aware The Very Good Butchers. They are expert bean butchers and created various meat-free alternatives using beans, organic veggies and vital wheat gluten (a.k.a. seitan). They are a relatively local company (120 km away in Victoria) which is always nice. Go local!

I know that technically this is a variation of processed food but... it also seems like their ingredient lists are fairly clean. There aren't any weird preservatives and... well... I've been wanting to try them for a while. Our local health food store carries some of their items, mostly sausages, but the VGB site has a few other intriguing products: taco stuffers, BBQ Jackfruit (say what??), Ribz, burgers and even Stuffed Beast (also comes unstuffed).

Big Butcher Box
top row - Pepperoni, BBQ Jackfruit, Ribz
middle row - Taco Stuffers, Smokin' Burgers, Burgers
bottom row - Very British Bangers, Smokin' Bangers

I was poking around their website in mid December and many of their items were sold out, including the Stuffed Beast. The Beast gets rave reviews even from meat-eaters sooo... one of these days we may give that a try. But for now... we decided to dip our toe into the water and try one of their Butcher Boxes... For $112 (including courier shipping)... we get:

• 2 packs of Very Good Burgers
• 1 pack of Smokin' Burgers
• 1 pack of Smokin' Bangers
• 1 pack of Very British Bangers
• 2 packs of Taco Stuff'er
• 1 pack of BBQ Jackfruit 
• 2 packs of Ribz
• 2 packs of Pepperoni
  

The burgers and sausages are obvious... but what does one do with the taco stuffers? And the Jackfruit stuff? Fear not... The Very Good Butchers have some recipe ideas on their website as well. Nice.

We used to get a butcher box (real meat) from Twin Rivers Meats via the local Hospice Society (a fundraiser for them) soooo... this is not all that different in quantity or variety. And it will give me some more stuff to track in the freezer app! It's not like we are going to be having these things every day... maybe once a week... just to see how it goes. It's all a grand experiment

Although... if they ever get bought out by Big Food... we'll be taking our business elsewhere. There's a difference between supporting a small artisan business where you know you are getting quality vs being at the mercy of Big Food and their tendency to value profits over quality. I read that The Very Good Butchers went public on the Canadian Stock Exchange this past year. This might be explained by The Very Good Butchers making an appearance on the Dragon's Den two years ago! They0 had five Dragons vying for a slice of their business. Fascinating... Time will tell if quality still trumps share-holder profits.